Shadows in the Night

The third in the Crime Doctor series of whodunits (ten films, 1943-49), by which time the character's peculiarly unconvincing history had been safely got out of the way (a criminal suffering from amnesia, he studied psychiatry and turned to doctoring crime). Fairly tacky stuff, with Foch being driven mad in rehearsal for My Name Is Julia Ross. But the Gothic elements, headed by Zucco as a suavely sinister uncle and a ghostly apparition dripping wet from the sea, are done with great relish, and even some flair until the wrap-up explanations come.